There are writers who crank out book after book for decades and achieve a mild notoriety. That wasn’t Harper Lee.
The author of To Kill a Mockingbird has died at age 89.
When her first novel arrived on the scene in 1960, it was printed in small quantities which shipped mainly to libraries and universities. She was an unknown author. To date, the book has sold more than 10 million copies and has become a staple of many high school English classes. One of our local schools is currently taking it up.
They made a movie of the story, released a couple of years later and starring Gregory Peck. Although she befriended the movie’s cast and attended film-related events at its release, Harper Lee was never comfortable in her role as literary giant.
She had received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961.
After decades of waiting for her next book, readers began to accept that To Kill a Mockingbird might be her only completion. And, perhaps that was enough.
Then, mysteriously, another manuscript was discovered and published last year. Go Set a Watchman has been described as the original Mockingbird story, in a setting years later than her prize-winning work. Fair or not, Watchman has likely not ever been judged completely on its own merits. It paints a less than angelic picture of Atticus Finch, Lee’s righteous small-town lawyer who defends a falsely-accused black man in a predominantly white community.
Harper Lee’s youthful companion Truman Capote became a celebrity as a result of his books and he reveled in his television appearances – everything from game shows to late night talk programs. Lee made a few appearances at the 50th anniversary of Mockingbird’s publication, but for the most part kept to herself in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.
We didn’t get to know her, for the private life she kept. Beyond the literary world, there will likely be little mourning for the author of a single story, told twice.
But the world has lost one of its best storytellers in her passing.
The likes of Boo Radley and the hollow tree will never come ‘round again.
